It Is FinishedSample

“Freedom”

In the 2014 Sochi Olympics, Jeremy Abbott, the American men’s singles ice-skating champion, fell spectacularly on his first jump in the short program. It was, however, a fall that viewers could see coming a mile away. He fell during the same program in the team competition and looked nervous beyond belief before he got on the ice.

He got credit for a gutsy performance in finishing his program, which included several more difficult jumps. The commentators expressed surprise that he could skate so well after such an embarrassing fall. But really, it ought to have been expected. Once the possibility of Olympic glory was gone, Abbott clearly felt a freedom that he hadn’t felt before. There was no longer any reason to be nervous. He skated with a verve that wouldn’t have been possible had his shortcomings not been so obviously exposed to the world.

It is when we can look ourselves in the mirror and be honest about what we see—failings, sins, and shortcomings—that we can begin to live our lives with some measure of freedom. As long as we look in that mirror and tell ourselves that glory is possible, we’ll be like Jeremy Abbott before the fall—a nervous wreck. We’ll be terrified of exposure, of failure, of being outed as frauds.

Once we face our flaws, we find that our freedom is even better than Abbott’s. Our errors, our embarrassing falls, and our public disgraces have been given to a substitute. His perfect score has been given to us. We now live secure in the knowledge that when the Judge regards us, He sees only His blameless Son, Jesus Christ. The next time Jeremy Abbott skates that program, that fall will likely surface in his memory. He might worry about it and hope it doesn’t happen again. Fortunately, our falls can never come back to us. They were nailed to a cross two thousand years ago.

We have all gone crashing to the ice too many times to keep telling ourselves that our quest for glory is ongoing. It’s over. We’ve failed. But now we’re free. We can live our lives without trying to fool anyone into thinking that we don’t need saving. We do, and desperately.